Learning English
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- Medium: Video
- Owner: Veterans Affairs Canada
- Duration: 1:34
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Learning English
Mr. Huot crosses the Atlantic on the H.M.C.S. St-Laurent to Ireland. There are very few French Canadians on board. He has no choice but to learn English if he wants to communicate with the others.
Robert Huot
Mr. Huot enlisted in Québec. His mother was strongly opposed and even went to see the Prime Minister of Canada at the time, Louis Saint-Laurent, to keep her son from enlisting, but without success. He left Lévis by train for Halifax. He was paid $1.20 per day, which was good pay at the time. It was at Halifax during training that he learned English. His military service was on board the HMCS Saint-Laurent. Mr. Huot liked his experience in the Navy during the Second World War; he tells a number of stories that give a good idea of a sailor’s life during the war.
Transcription
Learning English
We were maybe two, three French Canadians; the rest, well, they were English from Ontario, Western Canada, the lower St. Lawrence, New Brunswick. We learned English despite ourselves. No time to go to school. Listen, you’re sitting at a table and there are 15 of you after a meal and just one spoke French – me. Well, the others spoke to me in English - I had to answer. That’s how you learn. That’s how I learned English - with my buddies. Suppose a buddy came from Kapuskasing, another came from Brockville, another from Belleville, another from . . . the Gaspé . . . it didn’t matter . . . we were all friends. We were on the water, we couldn’t get away. You look over there, it’s water; you look over there, it’s water. You had to stay there. Nobody tried to get away. Because if you knew . . . if you left, you went out never come back. You got yourself eaten by sharks, and those sorts of things. You could see them just like I see you, big ones. No one waved his hand over the water [laughter].
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